To drive a vibration type actuator, an alternating driving voltage having a frequency of several tens of KHz and a voltage of several tens of Vpp is required. Therefore, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open application No. 2002-15919, a high voltage generation circuit is disclosed, which uses a low-voltage power source such as a battery, generates a high direct voltage once by a DC-DC converter, and supplies it to a driving circuit that generates the driving voltage. The output of the driving circuit is supplied to an electro-mechanical energy conversion element (piezoelectric element) via an inductor. Thereby, the alternative driving voltage amplified with a boosting effect of the inductor is supplied to the electro-mechanical energy conversion element. Further, a structure for boosting the power source voltage, which includes an amplifying circuit with a transformer, is generally used.
On the other hand, there is a vibration type actuator, which reduces the driving voltage by laminating the piezoelectric elements instead of use of the above-mentioned high voltage generation circuit.
However, the method using the laminated piezoelectric elements and the method for boosting the power source voltage using the DC-DC converter or the transformer increase the cost and the size of the driving circuit. In addition, using the laminated piezoelectric elements has a tendency to reduce the driving efficiency slightly in comparison with a single layer piezoelectric element.